Advanced Lithorica was just normal lithorica classes. If this is what they have us doing, what in the depths shitass training do the common conscripts go through? Her classmates mindlessly shot agates at targets or practiced some painfully simple three-command series under their teacher's supervision. Maybe a light sparring if they were feeling fancy. Agatha smoldered with her crossed arms as the rest of the class trained, tapping on the ground with her foot repeatedly. Part of her now understood why Mister Krugger could be stuck at the Fourth Stratum at his age. And that irked her.

  “Are you feeling unwell?” René Dago asked her. The man had tried to sneak up on her, but she had seen him coming from afar. Reflexes weren’t the only good thing she had related to her senses.

  “Nope,” she answered dryly.

  “Then why are you not training? Must I remind you that you are a student of this class?”

  “This is useless,” Agatha stated. “I have done far more intensive training on my own.”

  The black-uniformed soldier arched a brow. “Your classmates are practicing with the Third Stratum series. The Stratum they have.”

  “And I have been practicing with Fifth Stratum ones, so what? This makes no difference!”

  René Dago inspected her from head to toe. “It is not just that. I do not know what type of training you have been through, but no one grows irritated just because they are allowed to go easy.”

  “It is so difficult to ask someone be pushed to their limits?” The petite lithorist squinted at him.

  “Actually, yes,” the grey-eyed teacher clasped his hands behind his back. “Pushing one’s limits is dangerous. You have been training these past months outside of my jurisdiction, so there was nothing I could do there, but that is not the case anymore. You are crazy, Miss Malachite, and I cannot allow you to act freely. I only allowed that stunt at the tourney because I thought you had a good fall; something I would not have approved of if I had known you had a severe concussion.”

  Outside observers only saw her tumble to the ground during that sparring; they couldn’t know that she was keeping herself upright out of sheer willpower.

  “But I pulled through!” Agatha protested.

  “But at some point, you will not,” René Dago stated calmly. “There is virtue in taking things slowly. It is true that I have said that the last year is different than the rest – a foot into the water that is the life of a soldier – but there are still three years of instruction for you to grow. Why are you so pressed for time?”

  Fear, mostly. Agatha didn’t speak those words aloud. It was true that she was scared that she wasn’t growing fast enough. Sure, she might be in the Fifth Stratum, but she still only had a single agate and no lapiloquia in sight. She had ONE tool, and she was supposed to just use that one, but when that tool was just slightly better than one of the many the rest of the people had on their toolbelt, then what did that make her?

  She didn’t want to be lesser to the rest.

  She didn’t want to be equal to the rest.

  She didn’t want to be marginally better than the rest.

  She wanted absolute supremacy.

  That was what being the world’s best lithorist meant.

  What it meant to her.

  But also… An image of Christie atop a crown of stones flashed through her eyes. Gorgeous and powerful. A lithic might like no other.

  She also wanted to be worthy of the radiance that her girlfriend attributed to her.

  “I want to excel,” Agatha stated plainly but abrasively. A desire for radiance burned inside of her. She wasn’t doing this only for Christie; she was just taking her original dream even more seriously. After all, she was already seventeen, far from being a child now, but instead a well-established adult and soon-to-be soldier.

  “Hmm,” René Dago hummed in interest as she looked at her. “Whilst your discipline is a bit lacking, no one can criticize your drive. There is no better and purer thought than that of bettering oneself. I am actually restricted in the command series that I can show you due to military regulation and whatnot, but it is not like those I could teach you would be significantly better. Commands tend to be more effective when organically applied to specific situations. Thousands of series for thousands of situations. That is not something that can be taught and be comprehensive.” He stomped on the ground to turn his back and he started walking away. “But what I can do, however, is train your agate and instincts. Follow me.”

  Agatha obeyed and followed him to an arena placed next to where the class was training. As her teacher placed himself on one extreme of the field, the dirty-blond girl did the same.

  “You fought me once with the whole class at the beginning of your instruction,” he voiced out imperiously. “Now let us see what you can do alone halfway through your instruction.”

  She had expected the man to announce the start of the duel as he had done all this time, but that was her mistake; René Dago was now one of the duelists. He shot his agates forward without any warning or hesitation.

  That instantly got Agatha’s blood pumping.

  There was no time for reaction, only action.

  Recall. Summon. Protect Summon. Invert Summon Range.

  She gave the commands in that order. She first recalled her duplicated agates, then summoned her whole one. Knowing what would happen if she used the Invert Summon Range series, she instinctively first applied Protect Summon to it. Instinct, everything had to be instinct. Otherwise, there just wouldn’t be time to apply commands. No time for thinking.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  And it worked. René Dago’s many agates were recalled.

  And yet, that was the wrong move. She could see that it was the case as the black-uniformed soldier smirked. He had resummoned his agates, and the fact that they weren’t instantly recalled meant that he had given Protect Summon to each and every single one of them. Now, her massive Fifth Stratum agate was completely and utterly useless.

  Five command slots wasted to do absolutely nothing.

  That was Agatha of Malachite’s greatest weakness. The Invert Summon Range was a massively powerful series, but it needed five commands to work. A soldier could dedicate that massive expense to their spearhead and use the rest of their lesser quality agates to fight, but she didn’t have any more agates.

  Agatha recalled her big sapphire.

  Once again, she didn’t have much time to think. She undid the Protect Summon and substituted the Summon in the other series for Speed. The now active Invert Speed Range stopped the moving agates of the teacher in their tracks.

  That won’t buy much time, but at least it will give him paranoia about getting his agates recalled at any moment, or so Agatha would like to think. Psychological warfare wasn’t something she exactly excelled at, but every fraction of a second gained was greatly appreciated. Even if it was just unconscious hesitation.

  Of course, René Dago’s agates started moving a handful of blinks later. Far later than she had expected – which she guessed was due to the teacher not actually going full out on her – but still far faster than she would have liked.

  Pump faster, blood! She shouted mentally as she panicked. Those many agates of that high quality partially petrified her, but she refused to be beaten without putting up a fight first.

  Being unable to recall or forcefully stop the man’s agates, Agatha had to go for the next best option. Using Speed herself was out of the question, as that was what was keeping her still in combat by slowing her opponent, but there were alternatives. And also a handful of open command slots.

  Amplify Duplicate.

  She now had six agates at her disposal with three command slots each, and a massive amounting headache at that. Now I realize why Terráquea said this was an unpopular command.

  Of course, most of the actual negatives of the Duplicate command were the reduction of quality in the agate, but her big sapphire – or rather, six little sapphires – had still far better quality than her original lone one.

  Curses not without their blessing, she mussitated before giving new commands to the agates.

  Invert Speed Range remained. Too useful to remove it.

  Amplify Protect Control was a good one. It gave her shields. She also shaped them accordingly. Well, two in the shape of shields and the other in arrowheads. Nothing was a better defense than a solid attack. Her Protect Control was already better than most. Amplify just gave it an edge.

  One free agate. Choices, choices. She allowed herself to think as her agates were fast enough to deal with the incoming barrage of agates. Her teacher was going somewhat easy on her. His agates were fast, but they didn’t pack a punch. Whether it was because he was going easy on her or because he was trying attrition tactics, it didn’t matter. Can’t be attrition tactics. Amplify Protect Control is passive, I can do this for hours, even if it’s technically four agates with five commands.

  Then the ground trembled.

  Agatha used the agate she had left free on purpose to take to the skies. Speed Control Anchor, old reliable. She looked down by the corner of her eye – as she didn’t want to remove her eyes from the soldier – and saw the earth opening. No choices, no choices! She, marginally, panicked. No free agate either. His definition of going easy must be different than mine. It had to be noted that the man never said that and she was just hallucinating conversations.

  I can’t touch the ground, can’t control it, and have no free agates. That didn’t stop her from flying higher yet closer to the man who was casually awaiting at the other side of the arena with his arms clasped behind his back. Smug fractured bastard. Okay, what to do, what to do. I can spare one of the agates protecting me. Just one; otherwise, it’s too tight. Can I beat him with only three commands?

  No. That was the answer. There was no playing around it.

  Alright, let’s work under one assumption. One that I’m fucking crazy yet incredibly lucky. Agatha of Malachite proceeded to self-diagnose herself as a compulsive gambler on the battlefield at the sweet age of seventeen.

  Under that assumption, Agatha did what she was best at. Winging commands.

  She freed one of her protector agates – a bit of a superlative – as she changed Control for Light. The agate started plummeting on the ground as there was no longer a Control command supporting it, but Agatha was more interested in the dimmed lighting around her. Of course, that was not what her teacher was going to see.

  But a bright, searing, second sun.

  Him and the rest of the academy. But that wasn’t her problem.

  She then reworked the command of another of her arrowhead protector agates in a completely untested way.

  Amplify Control Target.

  It was hard giving targets to the Target command, especially when they were that far away from her, but Control eased things. That wasn’t the actual command series she wanted to use, but she quickly realized that she didn’t have enough commands to make it, which forced her to wing her own improvisation.

  It did work, though.

  The agate traveled fast, enough to cover the shortened distance between the two in just a second, but still easily reacted to by a lithorist higher than the Fifth Stratum. After all, supersonic reflexes were practically the baseline for the job.

  It did, indeed, not work.

  At the last moment, her pointed agate clanked against something. And Target, being the mindless command that it was, continued going straight even if there was another agate in the middle.

  “Duel is over!” René Dago shouted powerfully, lithorica-assisted most likely, which made Agatha pout as she came back down and recalled her agates. Especially the Light one, she could see the whole class looking at her as they covered their eyes with their hands. “I must say that you think outside of the box. That is both a compliment and a complaint. Blinding people is fine in a battle. But blinding the rest of the academy? Not so much. Reserve that either for life or death situations, or an exam where we will not piss off a lot of people.”

  “Is a handful of people alright?” She asked with a raised hand.

  “Sure,” he shrugged. “Go for the jugular.”

  For someone who nearly had his retinas evaporated, the man was quite amenable.

  “Barring the cheap tricks – which are of course permitted in war – you did quite a bit stellar work. Yes, before you ask, I held myself back. But I also used lapiloquia even if you are not capable of doing so.”

  “Well, we never really established any rules or limitations, so I honestly expected you would beat me into a pulp to tone me down a notch.”

  “Hah!” René Dago snickered, overjoyed in his weird sense of humor. “Unfortunately for me, beating students into a pulp has been seen poorly recently. A shame, it does work. Or rather, did. But no, that is not the lesson I wanted to teach you. Have you managed to get everything out of your system?”

  “Out of my…?” Agatha stopped speaking as she realized what was going on. “I… yes. Actually, yes.” She stretched her shoulders and arms. They were no longer tense. “I do feel more… focused.”

  “Good to know, now continue with the classes,” her teacher turned on the other direction and started walking away.

  “Wait!” The petite student extended an arm. “Am I sick or something?”

  “Sick? No. Well, depending on what you consider sick,” he snickered again. “No, Miss Malachite, you are not sick.” He added after seeing the worry in her eyes. “The reason why you feel better is that you are now tired, so your mind cannot work against you. You are just addicted to work and action.”

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